Blue-and-white clifftop village.
Twice-weekly highland market of textiles and masks, with Maya rituals on the smoke-wreathed steps of Santo Tomas church.
Off-grid dune village of sea lions.
Whitewashed covered alleys of a Saharan oasis town, the "pearl of the desert".
"Venice of Africa" โ a whole town on stilts in Lake Nokoue.
Cliff villages of the Bandiagara Escarpment.
Three miles of naturally pink sand and a pastel village of golf carts and loyalist cottages, just off Eleuthera.
Lantern-lit hillside tea-house town.
Stilt villages, floating gardens and leg-rowing fishermen on a Shan hills lake.
Cemetery of brightly painted crosses telling each villagerโs life in verse.
Stilt and floating villages on Southeast Asiaโs largest lake, which swells five-fold in the monsoon.
Red riverside warehouses and wooden lanes in Finlandโs second-oldest town.
Venetian-era fishing town piled on a peninsula, its bell tower a copy of St Markโs, with swimming off the rocks below.
Two-thousand-year-old terraces stepping up the Cordillera like a green amphitheatre โ the "eighth wonder of the world".
Car-free village of canals, thatched farmhouses and punted boats.
Floating markets and river life.
Danube stretch of terraced vineyards, apricot orchards and the ruined castle where Richard the Lionheart was held.
Storybook lakeside village in the Alps.
Walled medieval town of whitewashed lanes and bougainvillea, where ginjinha cherry liqueur is served in chocolate cups.
Fairy-tale town wrapped in a bend of the Vltava, with a painted castle tower and a baroque theatre that still works.
Rustic island of kampong houses and mangrove boardwalks, best explored by bicycle.
Rolling hills of honey-stone villages โ Bibury, Bourton-on-the-Water, Castle Combe โ that look unchanged in 300 years.
Highland Sulawesi region of boat-shaped tongkonan houses and cliff graves, where funerals last for days and draw the whole village.
Rainbow-striped Andean valley of adobe villages in Argentinaโs far northwest.
Climb 740 steps up the El Penol monolith for views over a maze of turquoise reservoir lakes.
The worldโs largest volcanic lake, with Batak villages on Samosir Island at its centre.
Slea Headโs cliff-edge road, beehive huts, Gaelic-speaking pubs and Fungie-era dolphin lore on Irelandโs far west tip.
Walled medieval town on the Romantic Road, all half-timbered houses and cobbled lanes.
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